The Truckee Donner Public Utility District won a court case against the incumbent broadband provider clearing the way for a new municipal fiber system in the California town of under 14,000. It looks likely that they will partner with SureWest Communications, a medium telco, to build and operate the network…. Continue reading
Vermont's Legislature passed a bill requiring universal broadband and cell phone service. The mountainous state is notorious for cell phone dead spots and most of the rural state doesn't have access to broadband services, even under the weakling 200K definition. It includes provisions for faster approval for new facilities (including… Continue reading
Remember how Qwest had been inquiring about a FTTH, FTTP or FTTC network a few months ago? The word on the street is that they're now going to announce a big purchase of equipment that supports all three technologies for rolling out a brand new fiber network. It'll probably be… Continue reading
The rural town of Pulaski, TN has recently opened their FTTP network to all residents in the city. The network offers triple-play services for about $100 a month at a cost of a $17.9M bond to be paid off in 17 years. It'll be interesting to watch this project and… Continue reading
iProvo is on-track to pass the 10,000 subscriber mark within the next few months, nearing in on their revised "break even" numbers of 12,000 to 14,000 subscribers. They're currently projecting that summer sales will be more brisk than their current 60 new accounts a week with the sales now aiming… Continue reading
After years of delays, Palo Alto's city council voted 5-1 in favor of building an FTTH system in their city. This has been in the works since 1999 and even had a small test system with a limited number of participants at one point. Dynamic City, the consulting company that… Continue reading
In the final hours of the legislative session last night, the House chose to take no action on SB209 leading to its defeat and the prevention of statewide franchise agreements. You can bet, though, that this bill will probably be proposed again, potentially in a special session to be call… Continue reading
It seems that San Francisco is re-thinking the idea of a partnership with Google and Earthlink to provide the city with a WiFi network. The city has cited that while WiFi is quick and cheap, it's not truly competitive with a fiber-optic network and signals might not penetrate buildings in… Continue reading
A poll by Utah Valley Magazine is in, and MSTAR, one of the providers on both UTOPIA and iProvo, beat our Qwest for second-best Internet provider in Utah County. They also came very close to edging out Comcast for first place. This is significant since MSTAR only has service in… Continue reading
The tiny town of Jackson, TN (pop: 60,000) has become a new hub for tech companies after rolling out its own municipal fiber project. These companies are doing everything from remote data backups to software hosting using the high-speed network built by the city's power agency. With these kinds of… Continue reading